Peterborough to Nice

A Pre-amble to the Season!

We had planned to take a 5-6 months trip to spend the 17/18 winter in Portugal and Spain, but at the last minute decided to change the motorhome first.  We wanted to change back up to something bigger than our panel van as winter evenings are long and, also, we now wanted to carry a couple of electric bikes, so a “garage” model was the answer.   We had a few false starts and eventually advertised our ‘van as a private sale on Gumtree, wondering if we’d get a response.  We needn’t have worried though because we sold it the next morning and, what’s more, the buyers were in Australia!  They flew over and picked it up from us 2 months later, as they had already planned to take a long trip over here at that time.   We are still in touch with them and pleased to say that they are delighted with it; they’ve been to Aviemore for the skiing, so it’s already made a trip that it wouldn’t have with us!

We found the ‘van we were looking for, a Rapido 963f, and took the train down to Plymouth about 10 days later to collect it.  We needed to do a lot of work on it, which we hadn’t expected, but all was sorted before we left.

And so ended our idea of a winter in Portugal and Spain!

We’re off!

Having decided that this summer’s trip was to be around France and Italy, we were ready to leave on 24^th April, so I booked an early crossing on the Dover-Calais ferry for the next day and we finally set off for the Canterbury P&R at 6.30 pm after resolving some last minute issues with the computer, which had decided that it didn’t want to print off our travel insurance documents!

As often happens, we checked in at Dover in time for the earlier crossing, so arrived in Calais about 10 a.m. We had a long day on the road, ending at Nonancourt (n48.77269, e1.19261), a very pleasant, free, 4-pitch Camperstop.

Lunch a la cave!

After a lazy start next morning, to make up for the long day, we strolled into the town and found a lovely restaurant where we ordered from the menu du jour and ate at a table in their cellar!

We’d been in contact with our friends Margaret and Malcolm, who’d also crossed the day before, but on a very late ferry; they were heading for the Marboue Camperstop (n48.11240, e1.32870) another great free stop-off, which was only 60 miles south of us, so we met up with them there.

Spotted on Marboue camperstop!

It was Margaret’s birthday the day after, so I went off on an early morning walk to the boulangerie for a gateau and a candle, but the best they could do was a large chocolate beignet, so we celebrated with a shared doughnut!

Birthday girl!

Before we ate it though, I sent a pic to Britt, a Swedish friend who shares the same birthday; logistics made it difficult to share it with her too as she and Roger spend their summers at Lulea, in northern Sweden! M&M then set off to meet up with other friends and we had a 2^nd night there.

Down to Bourges next, a slight detour that we thought we should make, simply because it’s twinned with our home town, Peterborough.   It’s not a stop we’d recommend though, particularly on a Sat night, as this was.  It’s a bit out of the main town, but is in the cark park of the Centre du Commerce, which is quite rundown but has a cinema and restaurants so car doors were banging late into the night. The highlight of our stay there was a phone call we received from Walter, our Dutch motorhoming friend who said that he was in Toulouse, on his way back home from his trip to Morocco and Spain, and maybe we could meet up somewhere as he was heading north and us south.

View from Uzerche camperstop

We agreed on the camperstop at Uzerche (n45.42477, e1.56696), a great free place with free services too.  It was an ideal location, because it’s just a few miles from the home that Margaret and Malcolm are building and we’d said that we’d see them there to catch up on how things are progressing.  We had a lovely 2 days catching up with Walter, some of it at M&M’s, where the 3 of us declared it to be a home to be very proud of, not least because it’s all their own work!  It’s a pity though that Malcolm offered his toffees around because John pulled the cap off his tooth with his; it had held on for 2 years since he had an emergency repair done in Germany after losing it when chewing gum!  No dentists were open either as everyone was taking a long weekend ready for the 1^st May holiday next day.

After saying our goodbyes to Walter we carried on south, stopping over at the free camperstop at Boisse Penchot (n44.59201, e2.20567), a very pleasant spot and worth looking out for.  Before leaving next morning I googled to find dentists along our route and found one listed at Decazeville, only about 20 mins away.  A very nice young Romanian dentist, from Sofia, fixed his tooth and we were on our way again. Later in the day we crossed the now famous Millau bridge, which spans the Tarn gorge.  We’ve been in the area twice before but this was the first time we’d driven over it; many people complain about the cost of the toll but, at €14.80 for our large vehicle, we thought it well worth it to avoid the long and very twisting alternative route. We were heading for the Camperstop listed Clermont-l’Herault Aire de Stationnement on the Lac du Salagou; Sat-Nav gave us a right run around before locating it, only to find that it’s now closed!  We moved on a further 17 miles to the Aniane free Camperstop (n43.68652, e2.25254), where we had a peaceful night, along with several other folks who, like us, made the most of the shady trees.

On waking our task in hand was to find the Loisireo motorhome dealership, a Rapido concessionaire, on the outskirts of Montpellier.  Like the tooth, this was Malcolm’s fault, as he’d pointed out to us back at Marboue that one of our headlights was rusty and the rear top light (which we’d thought to be only a reflector) wasn’t working!  Neither should have passed at the ‘van’s M.O.T. the week before we bought it, in January, so we now needed to get them both replaced.  They had to order them both from the Mayenne factory and wait for postal delivery so, with 2 more bank holidays in the next week, it was booked in for us to return on Friday 11^th May, 8 days later.  After a run around the Montpellier suburbs we finally located the Camperstop listed Les Saladelles at Carnon, another Aire outside a campsite, only to find that it too was closed.  At €13 per night, including campsite services it would have been an expensive stop anyway, so we decided to find an ACSI site in the area and relax properly for the 8 days.  We picked Camping le Botanic at Fabregues at €15 per night (n43.32’28” e3.44’51”). Please note: ACSI uses different co-ordinates from Camperstop so, like us, you will have to re-set your Sat-Navs accordingly; I have no degrees symbol on my computer so have used a . instead.  We do also have a Snooper sat-nav, which has ACSI, Camperstop, Bord Atlas & Alan Roger pre-programmed, but it’s playing up so we’re reliant on the Garmin (which has its own set of foibles!)

2 days into our stay at le Botanic we had to visit the local pharmacy,( the first outing for our electric bikes!), as John had woken up that morning with half of his right eye bloodshot and, despite what some of you may be thinking, I hadn’t punched him during the night!  It wasn’t painful at all, but as we all get only one pair we wanted to play it safe.  They sold us some drops which made no difference, so a couple of days later we decided to drive to the Opthalmic hospital to get it properly checked and then find another site closer to the Rapido dealership.

Not recommended transport in Marseille!

We can only say don’t do what we did – Montpellier is a nightmare of a place to drive a large vehicle, trying to negotiate narrow streets – we’d been told to head for the “Urgence” parking at the hospital but that took us straight to the ambulance access, complete with helipad to the side!  John had spotted a P&R sign for the trams so the next move was to follow that and get the tram back in, but when that led us wrong way up a bend on a one way hill we thought it time to abandon any idea of parking and headed for the ACSI campsite at Lansargues, the Flower Camping le Fou de Roi (n43.39’6” e4.3’59”).  We received a very warm welcome at reception from Sandrine and Christophe, who went to a lot of trouble to check out the public transport options for the next day, which of course was the 8^th May bank holiday.  We took a pleasant, rural 45 mins ride to the tram station, on the only bus of the day, then 2 trams later we were very close by the hospital.  A couple of hours later John’s eye was given a clean bill of health by the doctor and told that the bloodshot would disappear over the next 2 weeks, which it did, but he took the precaution of checking that his blood pressure was not high as it can be caused by that he told us.  It was high for him, but given that we’d just had to unexpectedly pay €618 to get the lights replaced and the previous day’s drive round Montpellier, it was hardly surprising!

Bank holiday festivities in Marseille

We made the most of the day after that by stopping off in the Comedie area on the way back, which we’d noticed was already buzzing with a holiday atmosphere when we passed through earlier on the tram.  We enjoyed a superb meal on the sunny terrace of a restaurant, with a string quartet playing easy listening music on the pavement a few metres away.  We felt our trip had turned a corner!

Back at Loisireo on the 11^th to get the lights replaced, we were very grateful once again for all of Isabelle’s help; I speak passable French, for most situations, but I don’t have a good knowledge of mechanical terms in English, let alone French!  Isabelle is leaving them though for pastures new, so we wish her well.  We then drove to Aigues-Mortes, just a few miles away; we’d really liked the ambience of the old, walled town on a visit during our 2011 travels, so wanted to take another look while we were so close.  The listed Camperstop is now closed so John just carried on driving and we found ourselves along a narrow road full of cyclists, but hardly a vehicle to be seen and pulled off into a large layby after about a couple of miles where we wild camped for the night.  I forgot to note the co-ordinates, but it was a noisy night as the main road was quite close by.

Morning coffee in Aigue-Mortes….

..followed by a wander within the walls

On our way out of town next morning we managed to find the carpark outside the town walls where we had stayed on our last visit so we stopped off for a couple of hours, happy that we could wander around again after all.  From memory, we paid about €10 for 24 hours in 2011, but that has risen now to €23; we paid €3.80 for our 2 hour stop.

We drove east for 90 miles and made our overnight stop just south of Aix-en-Provence at Musee de la Mine (n43.43281 e5.53439), the Camperstop at Greasque, which is listed as free in our 2017 edition, but is now €5 per night, incl. services, and collected by a member of the local Gendarmerie!  It was just a short walk from the centre of town when we went for an evening stroll.

We drove through rain next morning en route to another 2011 favourite, the Camperstop at Parking Municipal, Plage de Pamplonne (n43.21126 e6.66217) at Ramatuelle, in the Anse de Pamplonne just south of St. Tropez. It’s now €10 per night plus €.88 per person, which is a cinch for a night on the Riviera, located only 200m from the beach!  We returned there because on our last visit we had lunch in a fantastic gourmet beach (shack) restaurant, in scorching heat, to celebrate my birthday, but the heat had given way to rain this time unfortunately and the restaurant is still upmarket but is now a beach club with a limited menu.  Another restaurant has since opened up a few metres away, so good food is still available there.  I spent some time online that evening researching ferries to Corsica and Sardinia, 2 islands I’ve always wanted to visit, and found that Corsica/Sardinia ferries had a Wed crossing from Nice to Bastia at €105 one way; then I checked the Corsica weather forecast and found that it was promising only 9 degrees, 4 lower than the mainland and decided that 13 was quite low enough so didn’t bother to book a ferry!

A view worth the walk…

…if you are sure-footed!

There was a break in the weather on our 2^nd day, which allowed us to scramble along the headland walk to the next small bay; we really enjoyed it, but only attempt it if you are sure-footed!

Next day we headed towards Italy, making the mistake of taking the coast road, on a busy Monday, to avoid the motorway tolls.  We enjoyed the first few miles, as far as Frejus, as we’d visited the area for our friends’ son’s wedding at Frejus cathedral 5 years before.  We didn’t pass by the reception venue though because it was held at a fabulous hotel up in the hills and we were all taken there by coach.

Parking bay at Antheor

We encountered a long hold up in Ste. Maxime caused by roadworks and after a long morning’s drive, during which we’d covered only 38 miles, we made a lunch stop at a large pull-in on the bay at Antheor; we both said that it would make a great overnight stop so we circled it on our map but, as usual, I forgot to note the co-ordinates!

Another 40 miles on we managed to get a pitch on the free Camperstop at Saint-Laurent-du-Var (n43.68584 e7.18459) about 5 miles from Nice.  Hello to Australians Wayne and Leanne, our neighbours there!  John was hearing tales about how bad the Italian roads now are, other than the toll roads, which put him off venturing over the border because we’d thought them worse than bad 7 years before and had hoped that they’d improved by now.

1st stop onboard was the restaurant!

John spent some time that evening chatting to a Dutch couple, who said that they were off to Corsica the next day and he was quite interested, so we switched our thinking back to Corsica, I checked several weather sites and found that all were good forecasts except the one I’d picked on a few days before, so I made a last minute booking on Wed morning for the Corsica/Sardinia Lines 2pm crossing; needless to say it was considerably more expensive than before, so book at least one day ahead!